Angel Of Azar
by RavenQuill
Summary: When Raven begins to dream of her unfinished past, someone close to her is haunted as well. Behind bloodshed and doubt is the belief that you should not bury love with the dead, and that remembering can bring peace as well as pain.
1. Chapter 1

While this is mainly a slightly AU Raven origin story, it is also a Raven/Robin romance.

I hope everyone enjoys!

**Chapter 1**

She considered it to be her earliest memory of him, though it wasn't exactly… He had not been present at the time, and he was merely the focus of a conversation between her mother and her teacher. The purpose of the conversation was to address the repercussions of an incident that had involved both him and her, an incident during which she had been too young to later recall. But it was the nature of the word "incident" and all its messiness that drove Azar and Arella, those closest to Raven, to discuss it secretly within the confines of Azar's private study, and in nervously hushed voices. Incidents so rarely occurred in the utopic dimension of Azarath, and they hadn't occurred at _all_ before she had been born, the young girl knew, that discretion was key when dealing in unsightly affairs. That evening, it was the strain that had been noticeably building in her mother's ever-grieving eyes throughout the course of the week that drove young Raven to investigate Arella's mysterious departure from their quarters.

Raven kept a fair distance, recognizing their destination for what it was a handful of corridor selections into the jaunt, for she traversed them everyday for lessons. Raven never missed a lesson, not a one, even if she was ill and had to be carried. It was imperative that she meditate, draw within herself, imperative that she prevent the prophesized inevitable. Raven often wondered with morbid logic if the day she could not possibly prevent, the horror unleashed that her mother had repeatedly forbade her to speak of, would come no matter the whiteness of her cloak nor the placidity of her manner, why couldn't she sleep in just once? The Prophesy ruled her every day. She imagined it written somewhere, as if in a book, its permanence incapable of being soaked clean of the parchment. She had spilled ink many a time and had not once succeeded in bleeding the page completely free of it. It always left a stain, even if it was merely a tauntingly miniscule one, and she imagined the drop falling far beyond the width of the page, deep into her soul and further marring her chances at correcting the disaster that was her birth.

The sound of her bare feet padding along the cold stones of the flooring sounded far louder to Raven's ears than she would've liked, as did the beating of her heart as she sidled up to the ornately crafted door to her teacher's study. She had waited until her mother had disappeared within and showed no signs of reemerging before she stepped out from behind one of many temple columns. She moved with a nervous but practiced ease and winced at the truth that this was not her first time eavesdropping. Azar's study door silenced all voices within, but Raven stepped knowingly up to a book shelf leaning against the door's right shoulder. With quickened breath and shaking fingers, she meticulously removed a book on her eye level, its lack of spouting dust a sure sign that it had not gone years untouched like its fellows.

Revealed in the empty space was a crack. Once, a steel bolt had been forced through the shelf and into the thick plaster of the wall to hold its frame in place. The wood had splintered slightly, and the plaster had cracked all the way through to the other side where, Raven knew from prior inspection, its opening was obscured by a thin tapestry. Placing her ear up against the hole, or, rather, a few inches from it, for her head could not squeeze completely into the space, she could hear the conversation. The Listening Shelf, or so she liked to fancifully call it, was her guiltiest secret. It was her _only_ secret, the only one she allowed herself when the universe's survival rested on the purity of her soul.

She heard her teacher's bristly, wise voice that she had so often tried to imitate through the sheerness of the tapestry.

"… Albeit Juris' betrayal was regrettable, but I assure you; there is not yet any cause to worry the matter any further." Raven blinked at the name. Juris… she hadn't heard it before. But the fact that she hadn't gave it an aura of exodus, as if it would've been a common name if there was not some reason for it to not be spoken.

"Not to worry?" Arella spoke in a tone more exclamatory than questioning, which surprised Raven. Her mother had always seemed to take the teachings of Passiveness more seriously than some of the monks, and rarely expressed any form of emotion, even to Raven. "The boy has shown signs of empathy deeper than what is taught here! His vision bridges, uncontrolled, into Limbo from time to time and you know the source of this sudden increase in talent."

"Yes, of course. But if it was not for him, Juris would have surely succeeded in casting her into Limbo. Would you have her dead rather than have to worry for them both?"

"Of course not! You know I would rather be killed myself than… even if it means the Prophesy…" There was a silence up until her mother sighed and continued in a weary voice, weary for so many reasons. "Let's not have this talk again. We met here to discuss the boy's future."

"It will continue as planned. He has been in training since birth to become one of the priests who guard the gates of this dimension. I have no proof that he is unworthy to be part of the upcoming generation dedicated to this cause. In fact, under the circumstances, it seems the most appropriate place for him."

"His soul could be marred by Trigon!" Arella exclaimed, exasperated. Raven brought a hand up to her own mouth to stifle her gasp of surprise. _Could it be… _another_…like _her? She felt her pounding heart still a little at the unruffled, calming tone of her mentor's response.

"We cannot be certain that that is, indeed, the case. All we are certain of is that a young boy slipped away from his mentor at the dimensional gates. He then proceeded to make either a very courageous or a very foolish attempt to prevent a frightening individual from casting an infant into Limbo. Yes, we can assume that he and Raven imprinted upon each other, for such a thing occurs even between normal humans who save the lives of one another, but we cannot condemn the boy on the possibility that Raven seeped a part of her father into him." There was a pause during which Raven could almost see Azar tilt her head to one side, a sure sign she was about to deliver a staggering question. "Do you fear that part of your daughter so?"

"I fear, yes. I fear very much, but for her, not for myself. There is nothing that could happen to me that I have not brought upon myself with my own foolishness."

"Then let us not be hasty and foolish. We will keep a close watch on the boy. And it is my intention that he and Raven will meet."

"Why is that?"

"He is nearing fifteen years of age and will soon be a full Guardian. I may decide to let Raven see more of the city if she had someone to watch over her."

"I do not feel comfortable with someone so young"-Arella began quickly, but Azar cut her off with a small, knowing chuckle whose source Raven didn't understand.

"He is a full ten years her senior. And, as I keep assuring you, you need not worry with this one. You, most of all, need not worry."

"And how can you be so certain?"

"Because the thing you fear losing the most is Raven, her _good_ side. And even if this boy has been tainted by Trigon, he is incapable of hurting her. They're soulmates: they have a bond…"

Raven opened her eyes, forcing her unconscious mind to return to the present, to Titans Tower. The memory was one she had visited many times upon coming to Earth, but it had always been decorated nightmarishly by her father's cruel face and taunting laughter; it had been that way with all her fond memories of Azarath when they visited her in her dreams. It was her first dream since his defeat –which had brought with it a blissful period of nights which she slept through without torment- and she felt relieved that his face hadn't haunted her throughout it. Azar had once told her the past could not be let go in favor of the future, for each led the other through existence. It was a statement she had once feared desperately, but now it held a new light. Perhaps what was once good in her life, that Trigon had destroyed, could be regained, in some way? Raven never polished the outlook of pain. Life was what it was, and Azar and her mother were dead no matter how many times she closed her eyes and wished otherwise. So Raven never wished. But the thought that maybe the Teachings of Azar would someday resume was an innovative one that she wasn't afraid to mull over realistically.

Raven turned her head so that it would be on the cool side of her pillow, and realized that her head rested on a book. She had fallen asleep on her floor about mid-afternoon and it was nearing ten o'clock according to her communicator. The others would be breaking down her door soon so that she could cast her vote in a ridiculous and useless dinner poll (the ultimate decision was always a compromise reached by Robin and never involved any of the original, and bizarre, choices), for she had told them hours ago that she was reorganizing her books and would've been done if she hadn't fallen asleep. She supposed it was the darkness contrasting the ever-present candle glow in her room that put her to sleep. And she supposed it was the presence of the towering, haphazard stacks of books that had spurred the dream.

She transferred the book that had serviced as a pillow to her lap. Looking down at its cover, her heart thudded as it always did when her finger tips brushed the frayed fibers of its spine. It was _the_ book, the one that had kept watch over her forbidden connection to the study. She had always held it in her arms while she listened, unable to set it on the ground out of loyalty; loyalty for the way it never gave away her secret by falling from the shelf or tilting awkwardly in its slot. One of the things Raven was pained to admit about herself was the way she personified books. It was ludicrous, but she liked to believe that this little book held some essence of life in it_, her _life. In a wild moment, she had decided to take it with her when she had run away to Earth, and now it was all that remained of the destroyed Azarath. Ironically, she couldn't even read the language on its pages.

She shivered slightly even though her room was a little warmer than she would've liked. There was one aspect of the dream that bothered her. It disturbed her almost as much as seeing a demon's face would have, but the feeling of unease was spurred by guilt, not fear. She had almost _forgotten_ him, he who was most important, most loyal… There was a time when she had thought of him every day, nearly every _hour_, but she had gone almost a traitorous year without thinking of him. In her desperate dread of the future, she had nearly let him fade away with the unreality that was her past.

_I was young;_ she tried to sooth herself before slapping the thought away. Raven hated the thought of hiding from what was, what was written. She had defied her father and crossed out the pain he had caused her, rewriting her story, but the scars of the original tale were still there. They could still be seen, even if they weren't meant to be read. And she had almost, horribly, cast aside all the pages of her life pertaining to…

She gasped, her hands gripping the book more fiercely. She couldn't remember his name! All Guardians swore off individuality and defining attributes, including names, as part of the life path that they chose, but he had told her his name once in secret. He had told her only once, and it was not permitted that she ever say it aloud –he had taken a great risk divulging it- but she had said it to herself in her head every day afterward so as to not forget. Sometimes, when she was supposed to be meditating and chanting the sacred spell of Azar, she had repeated his name in her head, loving its mystic tone, the way it fit him and brought him to life. She had also, greedily, loved the way knowing his name seemed to make him hers. If she had understood empathic bonds between minds at the time, she would've known that she possessed him in a far deeper way, but she was a young girl. It had pleased her just to walk the street and point out a random person, thinking, '_They don't know… Only I…Only I…' _

A harsh knocking on her door startled her, and the resulting glitch in her powers shattered a light bulb.

"Great," she muttered. She took a deep breath, immediately regaining control, and she stood to greet her friends. She sighed as she came to the door, wanting to pursue the troubled memories further, but deciding that it could wait in favor of keeping people from beating her door down. Raven didn't reach out with her powers to see who it was; if that wasn't Cyborg and Beast Boy, she would willingly paint her fingernails chartreuse.

"What?" she deadpanned as she cracked open the door seven inches, a charitably friendly three inches more than she would've normally been comfortable with. She'd tried to mellow out slightly, but living in the present was infinitely more difficult than dwelling in the past or obsessing over the future. But this was now, and these were her friends, even if they were excessively loud and annoying at times…

"It's dinnertime," Cyborg offered, grinning. "Time to pick your poison. We've got three options by three different titans."

"I know you want to have some of my waffles, Raven," Beast Boy cooed, wiggling his eyebrows. Raven rolled her eyes, not yet leaving the interior of her room. She didn't like tofu, and she wasn't quite sure why everyone thought she had an unhealthy fixation with waffles…

"Doesn't Robin normally make you guys agree on something so we don't have a bunch of blue leftovers blue in the fridge?" she asked, the thought suddenly occurring to her. To her surprise, the grin on Cyborg's face was exchanged for a fairly subdued expression.

"He's not feeling great," he informed her. "He was complaining that his head hurt a bit, and if Robin's complaining then it must've been pretty bad." Raven had to agree with that. He'd once taken a near-fatal blow to the stomach by a steel girder, marksmanship courtesy of Cinderblock, and the last thing he'd said before he'd passed out was to ask Cyborg to give him a hand to his feet.

"Well, he must be fine now," she said. Cyborg gave her a questioning look, so she explained. "I can usually feel his pain or distress without having to reach out, and I can't sense anything off at the moment." She was able to sense the pain emanating from anyone, but she and Robin had a particular bond… She thought the word always seemed to strike an ominous chord.

Cyborg seemed partially satisfied with that. "Well, I'm gonna check on him, anyway," he said, shrugging and departing. That left Raven to grudgingly make the long trek to the control room alongside Beast Boy's constant chatter.

To her great relief, upon reaching the main room, he was able to direct it at Starfire. While the three of them waited for Cyborg to return, Raven faded in and out of listening to a rapid-fire conversation between the other two that made limited sense. She caught topics such as Klondike bars, the World News, and Control Freak, but she hoped none of the three really had anything in common. It was only a minute before Cyborg burst into the room, looking panicked.

She was immediately on her feet. "What's wrong?" she asked. Beast Boy and Starfire fell silent.

"Robin's not in his room." At that, Starfire was on her feet as well. Beast Boy remained sitting, not finding any reason yet to worry.

"He's probably just vaulting some rooftops, you know: normal human stuff." At Cyborg's next sentence, though, he paled to a softer shade of green.

"There's blood on his floor. Robin's blood."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2! Takes place during chapter 1.

**Chapter 2**

_Danger Room… Panic simulation 47B12… it was a simulation… simulation…_

The sound of thunder above ricocheted against the walls of the blackened sky, sending its tumultuous roar to the ground below and fading out like ripples in a fountain. Rain pelted against the exteriors of Jump city's architecture, its impact increased by uncharacteristically inclement winds. Those unlucky enough to be caught outside during the gale were drenched in icy rainwater within seconds, and they quickly sought shelter as nature and Heaven seemed to wage war upon one another.

_47… 7B12… access code… Machiavelli, where… what…? Where's Cyborg…? He was… there… simulation._

The argument within the atmosphere seemed to deepen, becoming bitter. Lightning flashed once, then again, as if furiously attempting to prove a point lost on Jump's frightened citizens below.

_Head… Pain… Am I dead…? No… my head is… in the process of killing me… And I_… _can still hear Beast Boy's… stupid game…_

True enough, in the heart of Titan's Tower, the green changeling dubbed Beast Boy could be seen playing a clamorous game involving painfully bright color flashes and a myriad of sound effects on the Control Room's main consol. He gazed at the screen, which he had been seated in front of for more than six hours, with a vexed expression similar to those of zombies on many covers of comic books he had purchased in his life. He was released from his trance when Cyborg, angrily wielding a solder iron, appeared in the room to bellow that he turn down the volume.

_Carpet… This is my room… How long… have I been here…?_

Robin mustered the strength to crack open his burning eyes. Lying on his front, one hand up near his face and the other by his side, he could only see the carpeted floor on which his cheek rested and one corner of his bed. He immediately felt gratitude towards the room's darkness, for the slightest attempt to focus his eyes seemed to bolster his already mind-consuming migraine. He slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position and tried to ignore the ringing in his ears. Instead, he focused on further piecing together the thought fragments that had drifted aimlessly while he had been regaining consciousness.

_I was training with Cyborg… what happened? _Heinstinctually shaking his head to clear it. He deduced immediately that the action had been a bad idea as he winced and placed shaking fingers to his now throbbing temples. He had had migraines in the past, and took a few meditative breaths to coax away the knives slicing at his cerebral cortex. He managed to subdue the brunt of the pain after a few minutes of stillness and disconnected thoughts, and got shakily to his feet. Pondering his situation, he leaned up against a nearby wall and crossed his arms, more so because he needed the support of the wall than a desire to relax.

_Did I pass out? I was feeling fine… fine enough to make it to my room, anyways. Cyborg wouldn't have brought me here; he would've taken me to the infirmary. _One of Robin's main lifetime fascinations was the path entwined of logic and reason, of discovering the inner workings of plots and secrets that most people couldn't see. Having the missing pieces of the puzzle being lapses in his own memory disturbed him. He could draw a line almost anywhere as long as he was sure of where he himself stood, but now he was wandering lost in a blank expanse and it unnerved him.

As the flood of pain in his head weakened to a mere trickle, images whose presences had been impeded by the pain began surfacing; and so bizarre were they that Robin felt almost certain they were flashes of a nearly forgotten dream.

Images of ten thousand bowed, hooded heads, as if joined in the creation of a single elegy for a soul as radiant and pertinent as the sun. Images of a crumbling library, the single room many times as vast as Titans Tower, with thousands of burning pages fluttering between the winding staircases like bloodied feathers. Images of Raven in the white cloak she never donned, clasping both his hands in hers, as they stood before an assembly of red-robed figures. Each of the figures had two-pairs of piercing red eyes that literally inflicted pain through a single glance. The most vivid was his feeling of being sprawled on the ground and crawling towards the rim of a chasm, a trail of crimson soaking the Earth around him and a heavy, metallic taste in his mouth.

He shivered at the last image, realizing how cold it was in his room. Winter in California was still winter, especially during the evening while the coast was being hit with the backlashes of a hurricane. Stepping away from the wall, he found that he was significantly steadier on his feet. He adjusted his thermostat and took some aspirin to fight the aftereffects of his migraine and nightmare. Robin decided the best thing to do now was to talk to Cyborg, the last person he remembered seeing (he hoped that whatever had happened to him had gone fairly unnoticed. He didn't feel up to fool-proof Tamaranian remedies).

His hand was raised to activate the automatic door switch when a strange muttering pierced the silence in the room. He whipped around, a birdarang raised to fend off any attackers, when the pain suddenly assaulted him again with a malevolence that had him gasping and staggering back into the wall he had leant up against moments before. His fist clasped around the weapon's bladed edges, cutting deeply into his skin, but he didn't really feel it. All the pain was beyond flesh, it was inside his thoughts. Putting his hands to temples and crushing his eyelids shut, his thoughts were coherent enough for him to realize that this pain was no simple migraine. He had had migraines before… this was an inhuman pain. He felt as if he were being torn apart mentally, physically, and emotionally. He wouldn't have even been able to cry out, had the idea to do so occurred to him.

The muttering increased in volume and vehemence to the point that he wouldn't have been surprised if he was speaking it all to himself. Thousands of voices (or maybe just one?) were swirling around him and in his head. In those seconds of pain, the strange disjointed words became all he knew, all he could remember, all that mattered.

_Azarath… Azarath… is BURNING… AZARATH… gates… close the gates… the Demon Lord, his poison… spreading… POISON… BURNING…_

_The girl… I only care about the girl… She is everything… _

The last thought brought him solace, making physical pain and suffering seem insignificant.

He stepped away from the ruined archway of the burning library. It was her second most favorite place, and if she wasn't there, then where? He began to stride away, his progress fighting that of fleeing, terrified crowds of people. Their frantic screams rang against what was left of the stone buildings and an eerie echo of the doomed and dying enveloped the courtyard. It was like a kind of music, and he appreciated it even in the midst of all the carnage, for music was once the only thing he had cared for.

Actually, there was little truth in that… he had always cared for the people of Azarath, even when they had rejected him, even feared him. There had been a time when most dreaded even to touch him, but now strangers brushed his shoulders in rushing past without qualms, consumed only by an instinctual desperation to survive. He should help them, he knew, but there was little he could do. They were all doomed, anyway. And he was mortally wounded (he _was_ bleeding, wasn't he?) and could barely stagger in the direction his fevered brain pinpointed. When the pain that was mostly void to him struck his senses from time to time, he winced and looked down at his scarlet-stained hands in bemusement. At the sight of the dried rose color etching out every line of his palms, he almost burst out into hysterical laughter. How does one forget that they are dying?

He wearily summoned back his focus. No, he could not help any of them. He couldn't even help himself. But he could help _her_. It didn't matter that the entire dimension was doomed, that no other soul would be able to escape; he would find a way to save her and spare her an early damnation at the hands of her father. He had promised that when the day of Reckoning arrived he would pry her wrists from the hands of the Prophesy, and he would. Even if his heart and mind burned with fire and his flesh turned to stone with every step he took, he would keep his promise.

The city was behind him and he was now on the outskirts, peering into a valley. The farther he stumbled, the deeper into the valley he descended, the more his mind and chest and throat truly seemed to _be_ on fire. He wished for nothing more than water, but he knew better than to stop. To stop would be the end, and he had not yet reached his destination. He had made it this far, to the valley she always begged to visit and where he had once spoken his birth name in a moment of weakness.

He nearly fell more than once, catching himself and often coming face to face with his long-dead mother. She was there to carry him away, away from the pain, and while he appreciated the gentleness of her approach he pushed on. The field around him was fading in and out of beauty and death, the bristles of the grass glowing their usual silver or crumbling in flame; his vision was fading in and out of reality, and he was unsure which was which. He winced as the pain assaulted him for a moment and then slipped away. He _had_ to be successful, or else nothing mattered: his pain, her fear of her father, the field, the missing book… none of it. He wouldn't allow everything to end with his life, for it to all have been pointless.

He had almost reached the tree. It was a tall, gnarled tree they had often sat under and talked on sunny days. She had so disliked being in the sun.

The pain from his wound slashed through him now that he was so close. Gasping, he reached out to wrap his arms around the tree, lean against it sobbing, he wasn't sure what. Rather than touching its cool, rough surface, he crashed through the beloved vision and onto the ground. The Earth smelled evilly of smoke and dying things, and his fever had deceived him once again. The tree had never been there, destroyed in one of the first of Trigon's attacks, and from where its roots had once rested onward lay a mile-wide crater.

His body lay on solid and burning ground. His shoulders rested on the edge of the crater, one arm by his side and the other arm and his head dangling forward over the rim. Looking down into the infinite blackness, he felt only confusion. Where was she? She would've been here. It was _their_ place, where she had grown up. It was where he had begun to care for her with a depth that wasn't romantic but, nonetheless, unconditional. Here, she had told him of the secret shelf, of her mother's crying in the night, and it was here that she had said goodbye.

His eyes widened as all the pain of the memory became more so than his wound, more than he could bear. He grimaced and choked back sobs as the tears flowed freely down his ash-smeared face. She was gone, had left long ago. In his delirium he had searched for her, no longer able to wait in the few moments of life he had remaining. It was clear now: she had said she needed to leave for a while, needed _time_, to be _free _of the potential for evil that Azarath saw in her, and that she would return one day. He _had_ waited and now, in the end, why had she not returned? Why, why, _why_…?

Heaving himself up with a strength he didn't possess, he screamed her name, the depth of anguish in his voice greater than that of the chasm.


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks to RobRae4ever! and RumMonkey! This chapter is for you!

**Chapter 3**

There was a tense, fearful silence filling the T-Car as Cyborg maneuvered it easily along the rain-slicked roads. Rain pelted the windshield angrily to the extent that Raven was surprised the entire thing didn't just up and cave in on itself. It wouldn't have been the most bizarre or ultimately destructive thing to happen to the signature vehicle. She felt the _burr_ of the engine through the floor of her seat on the passenger side, and knew without checking the gauge that Cyborg hadn't let up once on the gas petal since their late night drive began.

On the dash was a blinking frequency -Robin's communicator- and it was making steady progress through the center of Jump. Soon he would be upon the old Court House, a large, gold-domed building used mainly for historical tourism rather than meetings of the municipal government. Even though he wasn't closing in on his mystery destination as quickly as they were closing in on him, his speed was something to be admired. IF he was, indeed, moving of his own free will, whatever that meant.

The source of the stress was the Titans first-hand knowledge of Robin himself. Robin didn't leave anything, much less a pool of blood, less than immaculate in his room. He didn't leave the tower without notifying one of the other Titans. Robin never ventured into the realm of irresponsibility, for doing so can mean your ruin and the ruin of others in a line of business such as crime fighting. And if Robin ever did want to get away, he would've known to turn off his communicator. The most logical explanation was that Robin was in some sort of trouble, and they were all worried.

That _Robin_ was the one in trouble presented a whole other issue onto the stack. Though their knowledge of their leader was limited, the other four knew enough to know he had been a hero longer than almost anyone who called themselves a Titan: East, West, or otherwise. Also, where Robin was involved, the shadows of the world seemed a few shades darker. Slade, a very personal threat, had been a far cry from the usual villains they faced, and the battle had developed into an ongoing war that Robin had often shouldered himself. Slade was more similar to the villains Robin had faced in Gotham alongside a father-figure he mysteriously never mentioned. Gotham, where Robin had been raised, was itself a far cry from Cyborg's beloved Jump, Raven's peaceful temple, Starfire's palace, and Beast Boy's mansion. The Boy Wonder had probably once rested on a rooftop next to a crumbling gargoyle as the rain beat down on his head much like tonight.

Finally, Beast Boy could stand the silence no longer, and he began pelting Cyborg with nervous questions that Cyborg beat back with short responses.

"How long 'til we catch up?"

"'Bout ten minutes."

"Do you think he's being kidnapped?"

"Dunno."

"How much blood was there?"

"Only about a cup's worth."

"So, he isn't hurt badly?"

"Dunno."

"Maybe he just accidentally cut his hand training and went for a stroll and forgot to tell us?"

"Maybe."

"You don't really believe that, do you?"

"Not really."

Beast Boy fell into a wilted silence. For the first time (well, other than right after Terra's betrayal), Raven found herself wishing he would crack some sort of joke. Then she could focus her mind on being annoyed with its corniness rather than on the vestiges of Robin's emotions she was receiving. Even while so greatly distanced, she could see what he was feeling like the sympathetic outsider she'd always been.

He was in pain.

Every time she tried to reach out in an attempt at discovering which type of pain, she found herself blocked. Blocked not by him, but by her fear. Something in the second-hand taste of his agony stirred a long-forgotten dread in her. It was as if she was speeding up her pace as she ran from something she had run from for so many years, from a monster whose face she couldn't even recall anymore. If there was anything she was truly good at, Raven believed of herself, it was running away.

But she didn't faze from the car and drift away like a ghost, as her instincts were telling her to do. She didn't run home to a book and a candle whose circular luminescence could only ever imitate that of a winding library long gone. Instead, she turned to Cyborg and informed him of what her empathy was screaming at her, and he nodded, his grim face mirroring her own, she was sure.

Because she couldn't lose Robin. None of them could.

When they'd first met, she had thought him something of an anomaly. He was an overzealous but normal human who had forcibly molded his life into something beyond that limitation. He had more contradictions than could be counted. He had, more than once, taken them all on at once in a fight and won, but he never bragged about it. He read books that had more numbers and symbols than words, and yet he still enjoyed playing Beast Boy's disturbingly colorful videogames from time to time. He was a gracious winner and a positively horrid loser. And he had literally carried her, when she had been powerless and given up all hope, from the lowest point she could've possibly buried herself, and he had _smiled_ at her, as if nothing she had done was her fault and everything was alright when it so desperately wasn't.

The world couldn't lose a person like that.

Raven gasped as her seatbelt locked and her head jerked forward. Beast Boy and Starfire screamed from the backseat, and Cyborg grimaced as he tried to get the car under control from when he had slammed on the breaks at such a high speed and then skidded. They swerved for a few dizzying moments before finally coming to a stop. The right side of car threatened to tilt for a moment, but the wheels eventually found their purchase again with a small _thunk_.

"Everybody okay?" Cyborg asked the panting members of the vehicle.

"Dude!" Beast Boy's normal response to near-death situations. "What _happened_?"

"Someone, a woman, jumped in front of the car," Cyborg said shortly before jumping out. They all followed. If that was the case, she could've been injured, and their first duty was to the pedestrian. They were all soaked within seconds and followed Cyborg as he led them through the icy blackness.

"There!" Starfire exclaimed, her sharp eyes pinpointing a mass lying near a sidewalk a hundred meters away. They had been driving at such a high speed that skid marks decorated the road like a child's crayon drawing.

Upon further inspection, it turned out that it was not a woman but two men, each lying facedown and frighteningly still. Both seemed to be wrapped in a kind of cloak against the rain, but the material was dark and seemed to blend them into the pavement. With both hands, Cyborg gripped each by a shoulder and turned them over, and the way they flopped as if boneless reminded Raven of dead fish. Their faces only seemed to justify the comparison.

Their skin was a gruesome yellow, the purple veins in their temples and necks sticking out so greatly that the Titans could actually see their sluggish, sickly pulsation. And the smell was indescribable. It was as if they had baffled death with their appearance and now their bodies were rotting ahead of schedule. Beast Boy made a gagging noise stepped back, completely unprepared for the sight. Raven resisted the urge to do the same.

"… p-poison… in the air… p-p-poison," one of them was gasped, his hands clawing at the arm Cyborg had touched his shoulder with as if to make sure he had his attention. His eyes were darting rapidly back and forth. The other man was very far gone, and his eyes stared glassily while he mouthed silent words under the bristly beard they both sported.

"Sir, we're going to help you. Just relax," Cyborg said in his calmest, most affirmative voice, but he gave Raven a look that translated the truth: these men didn't appear to have much life left in them. Regardless, he tapped a frequency into his arm that would summon an ambulance.

"Poison, he speaks of poison," Starfire pointed out. She got down on one knee to address the man in her most serious, gentlest voice, the one she used to calm frightened or injured children. Raven felt a pang of guilt for choosing that moment to wish she could have been born so beautiful, so gentle. Every time she strived for such qualities it felt like a lie. She always reminded herself that she was, first and foremost, the daughter of a demon.

"Sir, where is this poison? Who causes it?" the alien girl inquired. Her presence seemed to sooth the man. She flinched when he let go of Cyborg to grab her wrist instead.

"Poison… in the air… from the g-gates…" he gasped. Raven's heart thumped at the word 'gates,' though she didn't understand why. She knelt down as well, but Starfire could get no more words from the man. His eyes stopped shifting as his face relaxed, and she had to gently remove his fingers from her wrist where the muscles had contracted for the last time and were forever frozen.

Raven turned to the other man. It was her intention to merely touch his face and try to heal him as well as her abilities would allow, but she couldn't help a shout escaping her lips when he suddenly jerked his head at her touch. His pupils lost their glazed, hallow state in favor of a stern trajectory that seemed to bore into Raven's skull. He neither reached out to her nor mumbled, but spoke in a clear, concise voice like that of a wizened teacher weary of the coming young and foolish generation.

"You can persuade him." He spoke it as not just a statement, but an undeniable fact. Raven couldn't help but feel she knew this man, from a time when such professor-like figures easily intimidated her. She couldn't deny feeling intimidated at that very moment, as if she were a small girl again with a blatantly dark place in the world.

"Persuade whom?" she inquired, confused.

"The boy," he said impatiently, as if the answer was so obvious and Raven was being insolent on purpose. "He was not present at the attack and didn't contract the poison. He can still close the gates."

"Gates to where?"

"The dimension." Raven felt a shiver run down her spine that didn't have anything to do with the rain. This was beginning to sound like the playing out of a moment she had crafted in her imagination. A memory she didn't have but was supposed to, if she hadn't been such a coward.

Cyborg could see the way the man's words were upsetting her, and spoke up.

"It's okay, Raven. The man's obviously delirious and not going to make any sense. You don't have to keep talking to him."

"What's the boy's name?" Raven demanded, ignoring Cyborg's words. Everyone around her started slightly at her brusque tone, but she didn't notice. She only saw the dying monk (she could recognize him for what he was now that she was crouched so close) and his deep-set eyes that bulged with fever. He sighed, as if it was a great inconvenience to remember such trivial details of a person.

"It doesn't matter, I assure you. I probably wouldn't be able to recall it."

"Please," Raven begged in an urgent whisper. "It does matter."

"It's many years he's been nameless… Siak. That was his name. Siak."

--

For those who are curious, Siak is a real name. It is pronounce 'Cy' –as in Cyborg- 'ack' –as in track.


End file.
